Do we really need a two-hour newscast?
Sunday, July 29, 2001 (Philippine Daily Inquirer, page 23) WHEN we first heard that PTV-Channel 4 (now known as the National Broadcasting Network) was launching a two-hour weeknight newscast, we were impressed. Most other channels report the news for 30 minutes--one hour, tops. Channel 4's new TeleDyaryo, telecast M-F from 8-10, showed that the government station valued the news enough to give it really exhaustive treatment each weeknight. So, on July 17, we made time to watch the newscast from start to finish, to see it if would live up to its advance blurbs. Alas, it turned out to be not only exhaustive, but also exhausting. Anchors Gani Oro and Chino Trinidad started with the day's headlines. Oro made a big deal about the new program's being a pahayagan sa telebisyon. Was this, in fact, a plus factor? The concept is dated. The show prides itself on its "live remote" reports from different parts of the metropolis. That capability is a a plus factor, but some technical glitches made its implementation that night less than overwhelmingly impressive. After 30 minutes of reportage, we began to see some of the program's strengths and weakness. It went into a lot of details, which was initially helpful, but some became much too much. Also, we found ourselves getting ticked off by the excessive "traffic" between anchors and reporters. Oro would introduced an item which Trinidad would elaborate on before the actual report from a field reporter, that sort of long-winded thing. Also, there were too many capsule previews of items to be dealt with at length in the next portion. And, to top it all, after about 45 minutes, there was a recap of the headlines! And there were breakers like an ongoing viewers pool, plus an occasional Alam Ba Ninyo series that focused that night on (of all things) birds' eggs. There were also segment newscasters reporting on the stock market (he sounded like he was delivering a speech) and the foreign news. After one hour, the long newscast was interrupted by the PCSO Lotto Draw, which went into excessive detail on the "judges" certifying that the process was on the up-and-up, etc. One wonders therefore why Channel 4 describes TeleDyaryo as a two-hour newscast, when it is really a one-hour newscast followed by a 10- or 15-minute Lotto draw, after which news reportage is taken up again by way of portions like the Hot Seat grilling of a newsmaker (last July 17, it was Kalookan Mayor Rey Malonzo). Another section dealt with crimes, then John Lesaca hosted the Muzak portion, which featured a one-sided look at the controversy over Freddie Aguilar's song Anak. Then followed some sports news, and a weather report done so frenetically that we had to turn down the volume. After the two-hour show, we found ourselves exhausted. But at least we now know that the main news sections are in the program's first hour, and that the nightly Lotto draw can be considered optional, at least for us. We'll probably just watch for the first hour, from here on in. If TeleDyaryo is beng on filling its two-hour timeslot, it should include more news item rather than stretching its per-item reportage. Also, it should remove the fluff, like all the time wasted by one newscaster passing an item on to another newscaster, etc. Otherwise, the channel could more productively cut the show down to one hour (without the Lotto draw) and come up with a better newscast.